While I know it's been several months since my last musical check-in with you all, it hasn't been for lack of effort: I'm proud to (finally) share with you "23," my 5-song follow-up to last August's "22." The album is dedicated to my Mom, without whom, of course, all this would be impossible. I love you Mom!

After hundreds of hours of work on 15 minutes of music, listen to it here on Spotify or here on iTunes Music Store.

All 14 instruments on the record were performed and produced entirely in Shanghai by yours truly. Mastering on the record was done by Sage Audio in Nashville, TN.

Sandcastles is the "single" of sorts, a ballad about awkward romantic blunders that turn into little moments of wonder. Tell Me You Love Me (Again) is the spiritual core of the album, and the bridge in particular (which at one point features seventeen iterations of my voice singing in 4-part harmony), is one of personal favorite 30-second bits of music I've ever recorded. I Want You is the vulgar, Ben Folds-ian single about settling down after four years of hookup culture, and Never Grow Up is it's - a bit naive, looking back at it a year older - natural counterpart.

And "You and I" is simply the most beautiful 2 minutes and 49 seconds of music I've ever released.

Streaming the album on Spotify here is free, easy, and highly recommended! If you want to support my music financially, you're welcome to either download it on the iTunes Music Store, or by sending me a quick email to let me know that you'd like a copy. Similarly, if any of you would like a physical CD of the record, please send me an email (name your price) and we'll work something out - any donations are great and totally appreciated. PayPal, Venmo, Alipay, whatever works.

P.S. "22," the official (English) EP of my work here in China, is now available on Spotify and iTunes. Been hard at work on new material these last two months - am looking forward to sharing it with all of you once it's ready to go.

I know, I know, it's been forever since my last post. Truth be told, I've been up against one the most ambitious deadlines I've ever given myself, and have been working around the clock to make it happen:

Fluency in Mandarin Chinese, in less than a year.

And while no test can perfectly assess fluency, the HSK V test (Reading, Listening, and Writing 3,000 characters) comes pretty close. It's used as the official benchmark for whether or not a foreign student can study at a Chinese-language University, and by employers to see if an applicant can handle a Chinese work environment. Think the "SAT" of learning Chinese.

This level of the exam is expected to take 4-6 years of coursework to complete. Exactly one year from the date I first started teaching myself Chinese, I'm sitting for the exam on Saturday.

So, every day for the last month or so has been comprised of 30-50 new words a day, hundreds of flashcards, reading exercises, lessons, and the like. I'm still rather nervous and am anxious to get the exam over with, but am proud of the fact that I expect to pass - thus completing one of my major goals in coming to China. (Even if it meant my music being put on hold for a couple weeks.)

Needless to say, I'll be back up and running shortly, and am so excited to be sharing a new album with all of you in September!

Exactly 6 months ago Sunday marks the first time I performed any of my music here in Shanghai. Brand new to China and eager to get feedback on the bilingual songs I'd scraped together, I gathered a bunch of friends (and local friends of friends), crammed them in my apartment, and played them my work. (Nervous, of course, that they'd hate my music and I'd moved halfway around the world for nothing.)

Thankfully, that wasn't the case, and their enthusiastic insight was the basis for what became my official channel 4 months later.

Here's one of their favorite performances from that evening, as they heard it 6 months ago:

That night sometimes feels like yesterday, and sometimes feels like 6 years ago! It's been so rewarding to see my audience in China and abroad grow from 20 people in a room to what it is now. See you next Monday!